Networks in Warcraft
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/technology/4272418.stm
While this isn’t a new story, occurring in September 2005, it is an amusing portrayal of disease spread through different networks. The case involves a coding malfunction that resulted in a deadly disease to spread among some servers in the popular multiplayer game, World of Warcraft. Initially the disease was meant to last a short amount of time and do some damage, but due to some developer neglect, they forgot to take into account pets being able to get the disease as well. This resulted in the infection being brought out into the main worlds, outside of a boss fight, where it was meant to remain.
What was interesting about this mass disease spread was how players reacted to it. It resulted in real world behavior that attracted various epidemiologists, as people began to try mitigate the damage done. Some who had healing abilities tried to heal the infected people and quarantines were set up. But even with that some people did not heed the advice and chose to act as carriers for the ‘corrupted blood’ virus and spread it, which lead them to be known as bioterrorists.
This lead to some studies being done on how terrorists and counterterrorism acts in mass crowds, as well as how disease spreads and how the networks react respectively. The prospect of this incident gave a solid example of the nature of people when epidemics strike and lead to research being stemmed from it in various universities such as Tufts and UPenn for epidemiology, and Yale for terrorism.